Apple on Apple Expo pullout; more on 3G iPhone shoot; .Mac outage

Apple has confirmed that it forgo this year's Apple Expo in Paris. Meanwhile, more details of the company's 3G iPhone commercial shoots are surfacing. And Monday's .Mac outage has added to speculation that a re-branded service may be imminent.

Apple says no need for Apple Expo

Apple has made it official that it will not attend September's Apple Expo in Paris via a statement published by the French-language Mac Plus.

"Year after year, Apple reduces its participation in trade shows because there often exists better means of getting in contact with our clients," the company said. "The growing popularity of the apple.com website permits us to directly touch over 100 million clients around the world in innovative ways."

The statement confirms a report published Monday by French Mac news site Mac Generation, which noted that original plans for conference called for Apple to occupy the two largest floor exhibits. In recent days, however, all mention of the electronics maker was removed from the floor plan.

Apple Expo has historically been held in September, which conflicts with a relatively new practice on Apple's part of holding its own stateside media events around the same time. Over the past three years, the company has used those events to usher in its holiday consumer electronics offerings (2005, 2006, 2007).

Apple Expo 2008 will go on without Apple, running September 17 - 20.

More rumors on 3G iPhone filmings

ValleyWag is running with a first-hand account from Apple's recent commercial shoot out in Los Angeles, which is interesting in that it corroborates several of the specifics first published by AppleInsider on Friday.

Among those details were that Apple built a full-scale replica of an Apple retail store interior for the shoot and that all non-essentials were forced to vacate the set when the product of honor was brought out.

In its report, however, ValleyWag adds that the set took two days to construct on the same Warner Bros. lot lot used to film the movie "The Perfect Storm." It added that film from the shoot will be shown off during Steve Jobs' opening keynote address at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference.

In speaking to AppleInsider, one person familiar with the filming claims that one of the scenes portrayed two CIA-type individuals trekking through the halls of a high tech building carrying an aluminum case. After a series of mundane corridors, they arrive at an Apple Store Genius Bar where they open to case to reveal the "product."

Given that Apple may have filmed several scenes on the LA set, there is no guarantee that any one particular scene will see the light of day, though the account is being published for the sake of interest and discussion.

Update: One producer and AppleInsider reader doubts the accuracy of ValleyWag's report in regards to the location of Apple's Los Angeles filming. He notes that the Warner Bros. stage used to film "The Perfect Storm" is actually stage 16, which is a massive water stage with a permanent hydraulic gimbal positioned in the center of the floor.

"There is no reason Apple would need all of that space and even if they did I'm not sure why they would need a floodable water stage with a huge gimbal in the middle of it, which makes rental time on that stage much more expensive than other dry stages at Warner Brothers Burbank," he writes.

Warner Bros. Production Stages; Stages 19 & 20 pictured.

On its own website, Warner Bros. says: "Stage 16, one of the tallest stages in the world, was raised foot by foot in 1935 to its current height of 98 feet (65 feet to the permanents) for a Marion Davies/Clark Gable film titled Cain and Mabel. Since that time, Stage 16 has been the home of memorable scenes: the features My Fair Lady , Camelot , The Music Man , The Old Man and The Sea , The Great Race , PT 109 , Key Largo , Ghostbusters , Jurassic Park , The Perfect Storm and Ocean's 13 to name just a few."

However, portions of the "Perfect Storm" were also filmed on a secondary stage, Stage 26, which could be the stage ValleyWag's sources were referring to, not the film's primary stage (16).

.Mac service outage

Apple's .Mac mail service dropped offline around 5:30pm Eastern time on Monday and did not return until about 6 hours later. This sparked a flurry of reader submissions filled with speculation that Apple may have been conducting tests associated with the much rumored rebranding of the service, which could potentially be announced as early as next week.

The online service has long been criticized for its lack of compelling features and high subscription fees. During last year's D5 All Things Digital conference, .Mac was singled out as a poor example of an Internet collaboration tool, an opinion shared by Steve Jobs.

"I couldn't agree more [with the assessment]," Jobs confessed. "And we'll make up for lost time in the near future."

The new commercial sounds incredible! The fact they had to "clear all non-essentials from the set" before they brought out the secret product blows me away; this is the most excited I've been since January 9th, 2007. It's all going to be answered come monday, just you wait.

My predictions for WWDC 08 are an updated iPhone to complement the new hardware, an updated and probably rebranded .mac (maybe as the "one more thing"), and - the only non-obvious prediction - some kind of update/upgrade to apple TV to allow games and whatnot. That's probably wishful thinking (actually it definitely is), but I wanted something there to break away from the obvious and generally-accepted predictions.

Also, we can be fairly certain that nothing will happen with [1] the iPod touch or the MacBooks, seeing as they just went up on the site in the new back-to-school promotion, [2] the MBPs or iMacs seeing as they were just updated, but past those they might all be fair game for something completely unexpected.

One would assume Apple has a lab to test things without causing a deliberate outage. However an imminent launch may be stretching staff and resources thin and made an accident more likely and harder to recover from quickly. For example, pure speculation, if they've loaded the new service on what would otherwise be a backup server farm, the backup server farm is unavailable to mitigate an outage on the primary. Also employees are busy on the new thing.

12 hours?! Unfortunately this is not the first time I have read stories on these rumor sites about "Power Outages" or "Slow Syncing" etc. Fortunately, since reading such stories, I was able to make the determination not to bother with a dotMac account. Not with the reliability issues it currently has. I hope if any recent reports about dotMac's overhaul is true... that reliability is one of the improved features. If not, at least make it free, so when there is a 12 hour outage, I can fall back on saying, "Well, at least it's free"...

Ten years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Today we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.

The new commercial sounds incredible! The fact they had to "clear all non-essentials from the set" before they brought out the secret product blows me away; this is the most excited I've been since January 9th, 2007. It's all going to be answered come monday, just you wait.

My predictions for WWDC 08 are an updated iPhone to complement the new hardware, an updated and probably rebranded .mac (maybe as the "one more thing"), and - the only non-obvious prediction - some kind of update/upgrade to apple TV to allow games and whatnot. That's probably wishful thinking (actually it definitely is), but I wanted something there to break away from the obvious and generally-accepted predictions.

Also, we can be fairly certain that nothing will happen with [1] the iPod touch or the MacBooks, seeing as they just went up on the site in the new back-to-school promotion, [2] the MBPs or iMacs seeing as they were just updated, but past those they might all be fair game for something completely unexpected.

Im very excited. But from the ad to the WWDC08 I don't think Apple TV will be mentioned at all. I think its all gonna be iPhone and OS X. i would love apple to start a networking service like Facebook, but only Applefied =))))

Im very excited. But from the ad to the WWDC08 I don't think Apple TV will be mentioned at all. I think its all gonna be iPhone and OS X. i would love apple to start a networking service like Facebook, but only Applefied =))))

The odds of iFacebook are slim, but I would love if they gave Facebook a companion application built into OS X, or an application that makes all your social networking sites accessible without opening a browser. Sort of like the flickr uploadr, only the Facebook upload...book?

One would assume Apple has a lab to test things without causing a deliberate outage. However an imminent launch may be stretching staff and resources thin and made an accident more likely and harder to recover from quickly. For example, pure speculation, if they've loaded the new service on what would otherwise be a backup server farm, the backup server farm is unavailable to mitigate an outage on the primary. Also employees are busy on the new thing.

And even if they didn't have a lab, they certainly wouldn't be taking a production email system offline deliberately during those hours. They would do it between 1 - 5 AM on a Sunday or something when it's unlikely anyone would be on. And I would like to think any planned outages would be announced ahead of time.

So no, sorry, but this was just another example of poor service for .Mac users. I've had an issue with contact syncing, and their response was along the lines of, "we are aware some users are having this problem, we hope to rectify it, but don't expect to hear from us again." So apparently they won't even let me know if/when the problem is fixed?? Pretty weak.

If anything, I take THAT is an indicator of an upgraded .Mac just around the corner. Perhaps they aren't really trying to fix the problem with the current system becuase an all new servcie is coming out soon.

I think the commercial will feature the CIA types taking the case to various Apple stores around the world, opening them in front of the people at the genius bars, and only their reactions are shown, not the product. Finally at the end the phone will be shown and they will make some statement or there will be a tag line about the world wide availability of the iPhone, its new speed, and GPS. Makes sense with all of the non-US markets they have contracts with providers in now.

Of course it will be shown after Steve announces it. "now i'd like to show you the great commercial we've filmed for the new iPhone"

Its funny you mention it. I have had the same problem with the contacts not syncing for quiet some time now and the answer I get is we are aware of this, we are working on it, but we can't tell you when it will be fixed. When pressured that they are not providing me with the service that I paid for they threaten to cancel my account. That is more than just weak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wiggin

And even if they didn't have a lab, they certainly wouldn't be taking a production email system offline deliberately during those hours. They would do it between 1 - 5 AM on a Sunday or something when it's unlikely anyone would be on. And I would like to think any planned outages would be announced ahead of time.

So no, sorry, but this was just another example of poor service for .Mac users. I've had an issue with contact syncing, and their response was along the lines of, "we are aware some users are having this problem, we hope to rectify it, but don't expect to hear from us again." So apparently they won't even let me know if/when the problem is fixed?? Pretty weak.

If anything, I take THAT is an indicator of an upgraded .Mac just around the corner. Perhaps they aren't really trying to fix the problem with the current system becuase an all new servcie is coming out soon.

I think that the "CIA-looking-guys" are just that - CIA guys. They simply gurad the 3G iPhone... Thoug I don't doubt that the commercial will be totally differen tthan previous ones, mainly due to the bigshot director. CAN'T WAIT!!!

12 hours?! Unfortunately this is not the first time I have read stories on these rumor sites about "Power Outages" or "Slow Syncing" etc. Fortunately, since reading such stories, I was able to make the determination not to bother with a dotMac account. Not with the reliability issues it currently has. I hope if any recent reports about dotMac's overhaul is true... that reliability is one of the improved features. If not, at least make it free, so when there is a 12 hour outage, I can fall back on saying, "Well, at least it's free"...

Yesterday's outage was the first .Mac outage that effected me in over three years. That's a way better uptime rate than gmail, or the Blackberry outages that seem to happen every five or six months.

You hear a lot of complaints about outages, synching problems, etc. But you seldom hear from people who are happily using their service every day with no issues at all. .Mac is actually very reliable, compared to many other services out there. How many times has Twitter gone down in the last few months?

Yesterday's outage was the first .Mac outage that effected me in over three years. That's a way better uptime rate than gmail, or the Blackberry outages that seem to happen every five or six months.

You hear a lot of complaints about outages, synching problems, etc. But you seldom hear from people who are happily using their service every day with no issues at all. .Mac is actually very reliable, compared to many other services out there. How many times has Twitter gone down in the last few months?

I agree... .mac is so reliable, that when it's down, people's first reactions are NOT, "oh, it's broken", but rather, "they must be upgrading it!"

That said, .mac IS slow. But I'd rather have a slower service that i find very reliable, than a super-fast service that may or may not be working when I want it. And since MOST of what it does happens in the background, the only time I really notice the speed is when actively accessing the iDisk. (And transferring large files there can be painful when your work-flow has to wait for the transfer!)

From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...

The commercial is for the 3G iPhone and ties to the upcoming release of Get Smart. For those who are familiar with Get Smart, the phone is an obvious tie-in as are the secret agents and briefcases. (Look for a familiar face or two as well!)

My window was much shorter, as emails were back by 5 pm PDT when I got home. But it knocked my Blackberry offline, and has not been sending/delivering email from .Mac account ever since. Weird, since everything else about .Mac & other Blackberry accounts just fine. Not looking for help, as I can call Care and seems more of a BB issue, but it sure seems like an odd occurance to me.

Apple won't be announcing the 3G iPhone at the WWDC, they will have a special event for that. WWDC has never been a place where 'consumer' type products have been announced, only the high power stuff. End of June there will be a special event for the iPhone.

The commercial is for the 3G iPhone and ties to the upcoming release of Get Smart. For those who are familiar with Get Smart, the phone is an obvious tie-in as are the secret agents and briefcases. (Look for a familiar face or two as well!)

I'm familiar with Get Smart (tv version)... "missed it by that much!"

Didn't Max use a 'shoe phone'?

Who will be Agent '86'?

But I bet Apple has in their iPhone labs 'the Cone of Silence'... Jobs: "this is the new iPhone", Lab Technician: "what?", Jobs: "What?", Technician: "what?"...

Ten years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Today we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.

When I bought my first Mac in 'O2, the Apple Online Site was free with a Mac purchase. I can't recall the name of the site. Maybe this new site will tie into a Mac purchase. Sorry - No - Jobs needs the extra income. Poor guy.

Its funny you mention it. I have had the same problem with the contacts not syncing for quiet some time now and the answer I get is we are aware of this, we are working on it, but we can't tell you when it will be fixed. When pressured that they are not providing me with the service that I paid for they threaten to cancel my account. That is more than just weak.

Interesting. Just yesterday I replied to their "don't call us, we won't call you" email aknowledging the problem saying that I felt they were stringing me along by not comitting to fixing their known problem. I signed up for .Mac less than a month ago, and online access to my contacts was one of the selling points (it worked, but was flacky, when I was using a 60-day trial). Like you, I said I felt they weren't delivering the servcie I paid for.

We'll see if/how they respond. I'm sure they have a no-refund policy or something; but it's easy enough to call the credit card company and dispute the change on the grounds of failure to deliver promised services as long as I do it reasonably soon.

When I bought my first Mac in 'O2, the Apple Online Site was free with a Mac purchase. I can't recall the name of the site. Maybe this new site will tie into a Mac purchase. Sorry - No - Jobs needs the extra income. Poor guy.

C'mon you guys! Maxwell Smart was Agent 86 and his lovely female partner was Agent 99.

Yesterday's outage was the first .Mac outage that effected me in over three years. That's a way better uptime rate than gmail, or the Blackberry outages that seem to happen every five or six months.

You hear a lot of complaints about outages, synching problems, etc. But you seldom hear from people who are happily using their service every day with no issues at all. .Mac is actually very reliable, compared to many other services out there. How many times has Twitter gone down in the last few months?

Twitter is free, with the too-common .com pattern of lacking a revenue stream too. Gmail, save for tiny ads, is free. .Mac is not.

That said, I don't remember ever seeing any any Gmail outages. It's been quite a while.